Utah couple stars in reality series about 2012 Warped Tour

TV • Mike and Linday Holshue become roadies two weeks after their wedding.

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This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

When Salt Lake City's Mike and Lindsay Holshue tied the knot in early June, they knew exactly where they wanted to go on their honeymoon: everywhere.

And that's exactly what the newlyweds did. Two weeks after their nuptials, they began a summer stint as members of the Warped Tour road crew.

From June 16 to Aug. 5, the couple visited 41 cities in the United States and Canada, with Mike part of the setup crew and Lindsay a marketer for one of the tour sponsors.

Their unique summer vacation landed them air time on a new reality show, "Warped Roadies," which will debut Friday, Dec. 7, at 9 p.m. on Fuse TV. "It's a good way to show your family and friends what you did over the summer," Lindsay said.

The series provides a behind-the-scenes look at one of the longest-running and most popular tours of the summer, the Vans Warped Tour, which showcases scores of hard-rock and punk bands. In recent years, the tour has expanded its reach by booking acts such as Katy Perry and Paramore.

In 51 days, Mike and Lindsay traveled 16,000 miles to set up 41 shows for more than 250 bands. Altogether, roadies on the 2012 tour consumed 82,000 meals and more than 18,000 cups of coffee, while battling rainstorms and record heat. The Warped Tour always seems to fall on the hottest day of the year in each respective city  or at least that's true in Salt Lake City.

The Holshues were joined by other Salt Lake City residents who are part of the crew for the Warped tour, and the TV show's debut episode focuses on the first concert of the 2012 tour, which played at the Utah State Fairpark. One of the highlights of the episode is when the Utah County band The Used performs 14 minutes longer than scheduled, earning the ire of the gruff tour manager. (For the record,The Used frontman Bert McCracken said in a phone interview this week that the band performed such a long set because it was excited to be in front of a home-state crowd. "It's cool for Fuse to make us look like bad-asses," he said.)

After eight years together and past experiences as roadies, the Holshues wanted what Lindsay termed a "punk-rock honeymoon," although the couple admit working on the grueling tour isn't a vacation. "There's no rest for the wicked," Mike said.

The two met when Mike was playing in the band Hollow at Salt Lake City's Club Bliss. From the crowd, Lindsay noticed him. So she took action. "She put a dollar bill in my waistband," Mike said. "The rest is history."

Mike first became a roadie to network with other bands, but it soon became a full-time job, and he found himself traveling all over the world. Lindsay entered the business by being a makeup artist for bands on tour and worked her way up to marketing from the backstages of the Warped Tour.

Once filming for the new series began, Mike and Lindsay stood out, said Brad Schwartz, senior vice president of programming and operations at Fuse. "The Warped Tour attracts a unique type of character, and we're excited to tell their stories to music lovers everywhere," Schwartz said. "Punk rock honeymooners Mike and Lindsay Holshue took the touring experience to the next level when they decided to go on the tour only two weeks after their wedding. We can't wait to see how viewers respond to their unconventional fairy tale."

That particular sentence might be the first time ever the phrase "fairy tale" was used in conjunction with the Warped Tour.

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